


DAVE:  BE THE MATADOR

by slipstream



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aged-Up Character, Alien Biology, Clothing Kink, Costume Kink, Established Relationship, Humor, Kink Meme, M/M, Post-Sburb, Roleplay, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:38:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slipstream/pseuds/slipstream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dave, um.”  You haven’t seen Tavros this thunderstruck in a while.  He points at you with one long, clawed finger.  “What are you <i>wearing</i>?”</p><p>“Oh this?”  You tilt your head so that the light catches on your shades, the corners of your mouth quirked in the faintest of grins.  “You can thank Egbert for pointing out the irony in our failing to ironically incorporate a literal interpretation of your preferred IM handle into our sex lives.  Though we might have to sit him down and have a talk about the appropriateness of buying lingerie for another dude’s dude, if you know what I mean.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	DAVE:  BE THE MATADOR

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to the kink meme here: homesmut.livejournal.com/10240.html?thread=16621568#t16621568

“No,” you say. “Abso-shitting-lutely not.”

Your name is Dave Strider, and until about five minutes ago you thought John Egbert was a pretty cool dude. Well, not _cool_ , exactly, but stand up, and not in the comedy sense. An earnest, well-meaning fleshbag of bucktoothed optimism, dinging on the “just goshdurn swell” end of the Douchbag-Or-Not-O-Rometer, to be sure, and more than worthy of the honorable title of _bro_.

Until about five minutes ago when, with a cheesy grin and a flourish of eyebrow waggling, he’d reached under the sales counter of the shitty purveyor of various novelty items, trashy movies, exotic glassware, and costumes for all occasions where he works (known to everyone else in the wide universe except for King Egbert the Oblivious himself as the LOCAL HEAD SHOP AND ADULT SUPERSTORE) and pulled out The Box.

The Box, a thing of plain, unassumingly rectangular cardboard grayness and evil. Contents: the evidence of Egbert’s ultimate treachery, aka one matador costume, size small, all accessories included.

“Oh come on!” he says, still grinning his traitorous, goofy grin. “It’s just too perfect!”

He’s holding up the little jacket now, turning it a so that the orgy of sequins and gold thread glisten in the greasy overhead lighting. It looks well-made, you’ll give John that much, the pattern of the embroidery ornate, the shining fabric a deep, wine-rich maroon. The cape sits folded up in a neat little crimson square on top of the equally embellished pants (socks, slippers, and ridiculous mouse-eared hat sticking out from underneath), the two shades, red on red, somehow managing to compliment the other, color theory be damned.

You have no idea how such a thing ever wound up in this rathole of perversity, potheads, and cheaply made gag gifts—probably got mixed up with an order of sexy beer wench petticoats and bondage lederhosen or some shit. A moment of silence for the poor sexually frustrated Octoberfetishists, their wet, accordion-filled dreams dashed on the rocks of incompetent overseas mail carriers.

“My oldest friend. And to think when you called and said you’d found the perfect early wiggling day gift for my main matesprit I thought you meant something normal like a cock ring or a decent bag of weed to go with one of your bongs—”

“Dave!” He sounds scandalized. “Those are for tobacco use _only_!”

“—but no, here you are, trying to shove me into something skintight and bedazzled six ways to Sunday like I’m your own personal vicariously bull-themed anatomically correct Ken doll and I will not have it, sir, I simply will not.”

“But Tavros’ll _love_ it!” John waves the jacket in pantomime, spinning out of the way of a slow-motion charge. “Olé!”

The patheticness of his wobbly pirouette cannot be put into words, human or otherwise, but you don’t let that distract you.

Behind your shades, your eyes narrow in suspicion.

“Serket put you up to this, didn’t she? Because let the record show that I am not nor have I ever been down with her mindfuck cosplay bullshi—”

“What? No!”

“Just you, then, wallowing in your own sick little mind? Egbert, you bastard.”

“Actually,” he giggles, “it was mostly Karkat’s idea.”

This explains everything. “You were on one of your disgustingly saccharine and expletive-filled romcom marathon dates, weren’t you?”

“Well yeah! And we got to talking—don’t worry, not just about you and Tav!—but eventually we realized that the two of you had been together long enough that you were bound to be hitting The Point sometime soon.”

You are going to regret this. You are already regretting this, Future You is probably going to pop up any damn second now and slap your ass back down to an alpha timeline where you turn smartly on one heel and walk your sweet ass right out of the store, so you figure what the hell, you’re doomed anyway, might as well travel this yellow brick road all the way to the blood-stained end.

“What point.”

“Y’know, The Point. That time in a relationship where things have been going really well for a while and everything’s holding steady but instead of being awesome it just gradually gets suckier and suckier and you both start feeling trapped in the blah everydayness of it and second-guess your choices when really you shouldn’t have because you’re absolutely perfect for each other!”

You were not aware of this point. You certainly have not reached this… Point. And Tavros…

Tavros hasn’t…

 _…has he?_

Obviously not. Obviously.

Fuck John Egbert and his fucking “The Point”. You are going to find his grave and piss all over it until it runs yellow with your disdain and his urine-logged corpse rises up to float down that river of uric dismissal in a scene so beautiful even Baby Moses himself would weep at the sight.

You tell him as much.

“But wait, I’m not finished! So you have a huuuuge epic fight about something stupid like who keeps putting the Wheaties box in the cupboard backwards. But then to make up for it you go and do something, like, really crazy and kinky to try and spice things up! But it’s more awkward than anything else and there are hijinks ahoy and you probably get locked out on the roof naked at least once but in the end it all works out and turns out to have been really fun!”

You stare at him, face smooth and icy like the granite counter at a Cold Stone Creamery.

“Thus, the matador costume?”

Once more he flourishingly presents the little cropped crimson and gold jacket. “Thus, the matador costume.”

Arms crossed you lean up against the counter, just another cool guy ironically cruising the wide selection of hand-blown buttplugs, supremely confident in his ability to please his lover _without_ the aid of some gimmicky role-play getup.

“What makes you think that we _haven’t_ done any of this shit already? Nitram, man, he’s like an animal. You waggle so much as a faintly scandalized geranium in front of him and he just goes bonkers, charges you down roaring and snorting fire until you grab him by those motherfucking goalposts he calls horns and ride that mechanical bull until you run out of quarters. Hell, we take that show to the county fair every summer. I’ve got about four silver belt buckles the size of your face to show for it.”

But John, goddamn him, is not a stupid man. His grin shifts from exuberant to sly, eyebrows waggling at the speed of fucking light.

“Yeah, see, if any of that were true, you wouldn’t be blushing as much as you are right now.”

You touch your cheek, surprised at the heat you find there.

First your bro, then your own fucking body. Two betrayals in one evening is a bit much to bear.

Your name is Dave Strider, and despite your best efforts you are being coaxed into this fucking horrorshow of a terrible idea like a flute-drunk cobra into a basket. You pick up the socks—silky, tubular whispers of fabric dyed a garish shade of neon pink—and hold them stiffly at arm’s length.

John nods an encouraging, hopeful little nod.

You sigh.

“Do these come in a different color, at least?”

==>

They do not.

It’s traditional or some shit, so speaketh the internet. From your brief consultation with Google you learn that you’re supposed to bunk up in a hotel room somewhere with a page to help you put all this crap on in some specific, luck-inducing order, and while that’s got enough homoerotic potential to power manned flight to the 70s-retro space station cum discothèque currently orbiting Uranus your own personal Page of Breath is busy making a grocery run, leaving you to struggle valiantly into the skintight silk all on your lonesome.

And jegus, is it tight. You’re kind of disturbed by how intimately John knows your measurements.

For having so many components and layers (socks, shirt, pants, braces, necktie, vest, sash, jacket, shoes, hat, cape) you’re feeling pretty naked, especially since the cut of the pants kind of makes underwear a no-go (you’re vain about panty lines, so sue you). On the plus side your ass is looking INSANE PERT and PARTICULARLY SASSY flanked with all those gold embellishments, so you’re willing to forgive the uncomfortable squish of your junk.

Not the tassels, though. You will never forgive the tassels.

To take your mind off your god-tier level wedgie and the teasing brush of tassel threads against your pink-sheathed calves you decide to spin up some occasion-worthy background jams.

Your place is an open-concept loft in a converted industrial space with just enough soundproofing to appease the neighbors and the tallest ceilings money can rent (a very important feature to keep in mind when housing a seven-plus troll and his TRULY MAGNIFICENT CANDY-HUED SKULL PROTRUSIONS). Needless to say the acoustics are pretty sick, your tables divine, and your fingers know every scratch and groove of your vinyl collection better than your own dick.

Soon you are mixing and mashing and crafting spine-melting beats, the awkwardly arousing cling of your bedazzled attire nearly forgotten. The universe is your ectorhythmology lab and you’ve got two planets’ worth of musical history on hand to appearify from at will.

A little [Carmen](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8Ult8x-doE) (and because you’re a classy guy, why not go with the [version](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A7_qUhPhmc&feature=fvwrel) by those shirtless, headbanging cellists?), a little appropriately-titled house, a little absolutely _filthy_ Alternian concupiscent bump and grind that YouTube hasn’t even _heard_ of yet, yeah, this is working out pretty good. Now add a dash of something [a little sweeter](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFyAWxEE6YU) to give a sugary edge to the fresh tanginess of this beat. Yes, _yes_ —

NO. Not that much, fuck. You’re trying to give the guy a boner, not type 2 diabetes. Though Tavros _does_ have a serious hard-on for the gooshier love songs in his Disney collection, so maybe…

You’re so caught up in perfecting the alchemy of this truly choice and fuck-worthy track that you don’t hear the sound of the freight elevator whirring to life until it’s nearly back up to your floor.

You scramble to find someplace to stand or sit or lean with supremely casual coolness, like you regularly lounge around in PETA-disapproved fetishwear, realize you’ve forgotten the cape, panic, flash step frantically around and around the apartment until it turns up half-hidden under the couch, resume your casually cool stance propped against a steal support beam, flash step back to the bathroom to check on the state of your hair, decide you look like Mickey fucking Mouse with the hat, ditch it, change your mind half a second later, retrieve it, shift positions so you’re framed in the thin gray light filtering through the dirty windows, poised like the badass motherfucker you know you are, and wait out the last agonizing, heart-pounding seconds as the elevator grinds to a halt.

This is _so incredibly stupid_ what were you even _thinking_ oh gog oh gog…

Sound of rustling paper and jangling metal as Tavros juggles his keys and the full sacks of groceries around and around until he manages to unlock the sliding elevator grate.

“Hey Dave!” he calls, turning sideways and ducking a little to clear the doorway with his horns. “They didn’t have any of those, uh, Flint… Flintrocks?” He closes the grate behind him. “Um. The little colorful prehistoric human-shaped vitamins you like. So I got the Last Son of a Dying Red-Mooned Planet Crash Lands in Rustic Alternian Countryside, Has Heroic Values Instilled in Him by his Kindly Adoptive Lusus, and Gains Superpowers Under the Reflected Light of the Pink and Green Moons-shaped ones instead. I hope that’s o—“

Finally he looks up, spots you, and freezes.

“— _kay_?”

You’ve got this, you’re cool. A dark eye is watching you and love awaits you, Toreador, love awaits you!

You jerk your chin in the minimalist but sincere greeting gesture of your people. “’Sup.”

“Dave, um.” You haven’t seen Tavros this thunderstruck in a while. He points at you with one long, clawed finger. “What are you _wearing_?”

“Oh this?” You tilt your head so that the light catches on your shades, the corners of your mouth quirked in the faintest of grins. “You can thank Egbert for pointing out the irony in our failing to ironically incorporate a literal interpretation of your preferred IM handle into our sex lives. Though we might have to sit him down and have a talk about the appropriateness of buying lingerie for another dude’s dude, if you know what I mean.”

You’ve always loved Tavros’s big, round eyes, so soft, unshielded and glistening despite all the horrors they’ve seen. They’re wide as saucers now, contracted pupils drowning in a sea of gold. “Is that a…”

You swirl the long red length of the cape enticingly, relishing in the sharp snap of the fabric as it cuts through the air. “Fucking _olé_ or whatever.”

Tavros’s face twists back and forth between a series of rapid, unreadable expressions, presumably some alien manifestation of pain given the high, strained noise he makes and the way he’s slowly doubling over, apparently experiencing a spleen-bursting fremdschämen-gasm at the utter unsexiness of your outfit and the doofusitude of your friend.

Welp.

 _Welp._

Your grin falters. You twirl the cape restlessly between your hands.

“See, I knew it. Shoulda gone with something classy—French maid or Chippendale—something with some _style_. Shoulda been waiting by the door in a penis pouch and cufflinks , tassels on my nipples that play the goddamn Alternian national anthem when you spin them, all ‘Hello, Mr. Nitram, and how would you like to be fucked today?’ _Fuck._ ”

Slowly, carefully, your matesprit drops the grocery bags on the floor. His breathing is ragged, his lips pulled back to reveal clenched, pointed teeth.

Twirl, twirl, twirl.

“I know it’s painfully pitiful but you’re doubled up quite a bit there, bro, it’s enough to make a Strider call safeword on a scene and ask ‘are you okay’ all deep and serious like the sensitive dom in a self-published fetish novel. Nothing hardcore here I’m talking grocery store checkout levels of simpering sadomasochism, Fabio in leather pants, leaning over you with his bronzed lips all a’quiver and his hair smelling like fucking Pantene Pro V.”

Tavros is braced on all fours now, the muscles of his long limbs tense and trembling, his hips raised.

 _Twirl…_

“Also why are you pawing at the floor like that you’re gonna scratch the hardwood and wow did you know that your pupils are like really wide all of a sud—”

And that’s all you manage to get out before Tavros snorts, lowers his head, and charges.

==>

You dodge the first assault—red silk arcing behind you like a trail of fresh blood— but only just. Surely someone without your years of smuppet and swordplay forged reflexes would have been instantly gored. Tavros grunts and scrambles as he turns; you avoid him more easily the second time but only because you’re expecting it. He passes so close to you that you feel the rough denim of his pant leg drag heavily across your ankle.

From there things get kind of _Kill Bill: Volume 1_. Your sweet mix makes for pretty awesome fight scene music, if you do say so yourself, even if this is less of a fight and more of a _mad scramble for physical safety oh gog look out there he comes again_ —

Tavros plows through the red swirl of your cape. Never before have you been quite so aware of the  
gleaming points of his horns (the better to lance you with, my dear). His teeth snap in frustration, and there’s a glazed look to his eyes that reminds you of that time you were both dead.

You kind of cartwheel out of the way of his next charge (Rose could probably write a fucking dissertation on that one), run halfway up an exposed brick wall to escape the charge after that. Somewhere a lamp tips over and shatters, a civilian casualty in the war between national stereotype-clad disc jockey and his suddenly insane alien boyfriend. These days Tavros is usually pretty deft when it comes to his horns but now they’re fucking everywhere, like your loft is a giant blender and they’re the candy corn colored blades waiting eagerly at the bottom, ready to blend the everloving shit out of you and your V3RY R3V34L1NG STR4WB3RRY FL4VOR3D KN1CK3RS until all that remains is a delicious daiquiri of pain.

At one point you launch yourself over the couch in the hopes that he’ll jam himself into the back of it (not that the couch has ever done anything to you personally—it was decently comfortable and amiable as far as Craigslist couches went—but sometimes sacrifices have to be made). It kind of works, but then with an ominous ripping noise and a sudden aerosolization of cushion foam he’s hot on your trail again.

You start to sweat, leaving very unseemly dark patches in all the least appropriate creases of your costume. If prior, more conventionally erotic evenings with the troll are anything to judge by, you’ve got a while yet before Tavros tires himself out.

Fan.

Tastic.

You try to work your way over to the corner where you’ve got your collection of SHITTY SENTIMENTAL SWORDS OF QUESTIONABLE SHARPNESS displayed on a rickety wooden wall-mount emblazoned with the tackiest lacquered dragons money can buy but Tavros, sensing your intent, keeps blocking your path, backing you up so that you’re cornered against the kitchen.

Somewhere in the universe, your Bro is looking down at you through pointy, disappointed shades and shaking his head at your failure. Caught weaponless in your own place _and_ without a cache of spare swords in the fridge? _Very_ un-cool.

In between the dodging and leaping and twisting and twirling and occasional backflipping and mental Bro scoldings two things are becoming increasingly clear to you:

1.) You are going to die.

2.) You are going to die, and it is _all John Egbert’s fault._

Fuck him. Fuck. _Him._ Fuck his fucking perverse feelings jams with troll Dr. Ruth and his fucking eyebrows and their stupid fucking waggling and his fucking way of turning this fucking ridiculous jacket this way and fucking that and that so that all the fucking sequins lit up like a thousand tiny fucking suns burning into your brain and making you all dopey-eyed with fucking possibilities.

The bastard better have Jason Miller, Zelda Rubinstein, and at least two of the goddamn Ghostbusters on speed-dial because you are going to haunt his ass _so hard_ —

And you’re caught, Tavros’s right horn hooking you around the waist, the tip of it sliding under the open flap of your jacket and slipping along the silk line of your sash, as silent and deadly as a knife between your ribs. You brace for the hard impact of his skull against your gut, the puncture-rip-tear of his horns raking across your back, but there is only warmth, hard and narrow, curling around your middle as—in the last nanomoment—Tavros turns, curving around the pivot of your body, and releases you.

Your stupid velvet shoes have absolutely zero traction, and you skid less-than-gracefully for several feet, arms flailing to keep your balance. You pant for air, a bit dizzy and more than a bit stunned to still be alive.

What the hell just happened there?

Twenty feet away, in the shadows cast by the fading afternoon light, Tavros is settled back on his haunches, watching you. Waiting. Goddamn _licking his chops_.

Oh fuck it. It’s not like you haven’t been dead before.

You shake out your cape, make like Madonna, and STRIKE A POSE ‘CAUSE SHIT JUST GOT REAL.

“Bring it, motherfucker.”

With a low, clicking growl Tavros obliges your request. The it, it is brung.

The battlefield wracks up more casualties in the form of overturned secondhand furniture, trampled children’s reading material, and shattered knickknacks of an ironic persuasion. You manage to evade Tavros for longer this time (putting a serious strain not only on your muscles but also the stitches in the general vicinity of your crotch) but eventually you’re caught again, the heated touch of his horn through your clothing jangling your nerves like you’re freaking Peter Parker and some freaky mad shit outside the Daily Bugle is making your spider sense go haywire.

Again you brace for a blow that never comes and again Tavros turns and pulls away at the last moment. Charge, evade, charge, catch, release. And repeat, the fleeting, circling touch of his horns moving up and down your body, phantom welts of heat that linger long after their maker has darted away again.

At some point in your dance you realize you are being herded, away from the kitchen and towards the sleeping area. You’re in the middle of formulating a plan on how to best work this to your advantage when you’re caught once more, the crook of Tavros’s horn skimming teasingly over the uncomfortable bulge of your cock before trailing along the curve of your buttocks in what is unmistakably a caress. This time when Tavros falls back to let you catch your breath there’s a faint but definite smirk to his lips and a not-at-all faint tenting in his pants.

Oh.

 _Ooooh._

Your name is Dave Strider, and you can be a bit of a dumbfuck sometimes.

From the look on Tavros’s face and the playful pawing of his hands he’s caught on to the fact that you’ve finally caught on and is ready to GET THIS WILD WILD WEST JIGGY WITH IT PARTY STARTED BIG WILLIE STYLE SOME TIME THIS WILLENNIUM. Your circulatory system, previously occupied with the pounding, thankless funneling of reinforcements to your oxygen-starved muscles, very happily concedes to this sudden change of mood and sends all available units south.

Leering in aroused relief, you ready yourself again for Tavros’s charge, stance looser than before, swirling your cape suggestively.

Maybe Egbert isn’t such a moon-eyed fuckass after—

You’re being lifted off your feet, your breath knocked out of you before you even had time to really appreciate the seriously impressive, rapidly advancing span of your matesprit’s rack much less the frankly touching scene (not quite Oscar worthy, to be sure, but deserving of at least a nod at the Golden Globes) as your velvet-shod toes bid terra firma adieu. The world goes a bit topsy-turvy upsie-downie after that, and there’s all these bright spots flashing at the corner of your vision, golden-white edged with almost-color and lots of black in between. Fucking trippy scene, bro, might be some fat new beats there, maybe you should…

==>

“Uh, Dave? Dave!”

You wake up jammed between a rock and a soft place. Tavros’s warm, solid weight is an intimately familiar sensation, as is the way you sink beneath it into the plush, rumpled down of your comforter. The genuinely worried quirk to his eyebrows and the way one fang catches on his lower lip as he frowns is also familiar though not nearly as much fun (at least, not anymore).

You can’t have been out long, a second or two, at most, but it still takes a moment to click all of the puzzle pieces back into place. You’re supine on the unmade bed, legs splayed, Nitram nestled all up ons between them and up in your grill so that his increasingly vexed mug eats up your field of vision like Imax, and wearing what feels like the tightest, most righteous pair of leggings to ever exist outside of a hokey, alien religion.

Ah. Right.

“’Mokay,” you grunt, still a little winded. Nitram could probably straddle an F-14 fighter jet, toss a gauzy scarf into the sunset, and seriously school Berlin and the entire cast of _Top Gun_ on the fine art of [taking a dude’s breath away](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DARX9nzNE3E).

“Oh!” Your matesprit’s expression instantly brightens (you blame the flushed feeling the sight gives you on your lingering loopy lightheadedness). “Good! I was getting really worried there, for a minute.”

He’s panting slightly, you’re pleased to note, a few stray hairs of his mohawk sticking to the sweaty skin of his brow. You put up a good fight for someone of your position in the great intergalactic food chain. Your ribs burn a little as you suck in a deep lungful of air, but it’s a good kind of pain, adrenaline purring into the red-flash-reassurance of being alive, and the fresh supply of oxygen banishes the last of the annoying pixies flitting around the edges of reality.

“Just, warn a bro next time you want to use him as your own personal hackey sack, all right?”

It shouldn’t be possible for someone with more teeth in his head than many species of shark to grin quite so sheepishly. “Sorry. I thought you were going to go left but then you didn’t go at all, and then I was sort of… _making_ you go and I kind of, uh, clotheslined you.”

You pat him on the shoulder in as reassuring and cooly self-assured a manner as is possible for a handsome young dude flat on his back with his pink stocking feet dangling off the edge of the mattress. “I think I’ll live.”

He catches your hand in his own, brings it up to his mouth to press a questioning kiss into your palm. Tavros puts just enough of a hint of teeth to the wet caress for you to forgive the utter sappiness of the gesture (you have no excuses for the completely unironic way his dark lips against your calloused skin makes your cock twitch). His pupils have narrowed slightly, no longer the glazed, animalistic sea of black from earlier but still round with bloodlust. Very, _very_ interested, but willing to back off if the unexpected assault to your rib cage has put a damper on the mood.

Have you prepared your status report, First Lt. Libido?

Affirmative, sir. We have taken minor damage but the troops are in a fighting spirit and all systems are go.

Splendid, Lieutenant. You may fire when ready.

Your captive hand is in prime position for a surprise attack. Tavros squeaks a little when you seize him by the ear and yank him down for a kiss. As the honorable captain of the U.S.S. Stridesexy it is your pleasure and sworn duty to respond to any such signals of distress. You throw the troll a life preserver made of CONCENTRATED TONGUE ON TONGUE ACTION.

Tavros moans happily into the kiss, hands torn between tangling themselves in your necktie and petting along the embroidered patterns on your sleeves. He grinds his hips against yours, and if your genitals are feeling a bit claustrophobic his bulge has got to be clawing at the metaphorical troll-denim walls, all buttoned up like that. You buck up, intending to force enough leverage and space to flip the both of you over so you can free the caged beast and tame it to the screaming, carnation-chucking glee of an imagined crowd of thousands, but Tavros makes this _sound_ , deep and low and loud enough that it rattles in your own lungs, and holds you still with one casually braced hand.

It’s easy to forget, sometimes, just how motherfucking _strong_ he is. Strong like bull.

He breaks off the kiss to nip playfully along your jaw, head tilted so that one horn drags across the sheets, close enough for you to hear the faint scratching as the sharp tip catches on the fabric. “I think, that I won the bullfight, Señor Toréador.”

Even if this isn’t exactly how you’d pictured things going down you’re willing to roll with it, especially if Tavros keeps sucking at _that spot right there oh jesus kangaroo court christ in lollipop striped pajamas terezi is going to go on and fucking on about the raspberry blast flavor of your latest hickey but you do. not. care. because this is so. worth. it_.

All things considered, you do a pretty decent job of keeping your voice level and your expression smooth. “Then step on up into the winner’s circle, son, and claim your first place wreath of roses before they up and wilt on a bro.”

Tavros laughs, calls your bluff, and sucks until you’re all but chocking on strangled little sounds of pleasure, his hips pressing into yours in slow, excruciating circles as if to say _iT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE, tHIS ROSE IS GOING TO BE WILTING, aNYTIME SOON._

There’s a joke there about pricks and thorns but you’re currently much too distracted and lacking in blood flow to the brain to make a proper, non-clichéd go of it so you abandon it and whatever’s left of your pride in favor of seeing this set of objectively absurd but undeniably sexy circumstances out to the bitter, sticky end.

Tavros leans back just far enough to shuffle you both slightly up the bed, shifting you so that your hips are cantered upward in his lap, his large, gentle hands pressing down on your knees and the insides of your thighs until your legs are spread obscenely wide. The position puts considerable strain on the stitching holding the red silk together (never mind your increasingly cramped, heretofore ignored erection), and you can’t help but hiss and shift fretfully under the tight press of the inseam against your flesh, unable to determine whether the sensation is annoying and itchy or THE BIGGEST INADVERTANT COCK-TEASE EVER CREATED BY FASHION KIND.

Tavros notes your squirming with interest and rubs a curious finger along the stretched seam, tracing it up to graze lightly at your balls and back down along your perineum, chirping in satisfaction at the way your breath hitches beneath his touch. It’s a bit awkward, but he’s tall enough to lean down and ghost barely-there kisses to the corner of your mouth and across your cheeks, hot tongue occasionally darting out to trace the cool edges of your frames, while his fingers tease you with steadily increasing pressure.

It’s been a while since he’s clipped his nails and though they aren’t exactly sharp they have grown enough for you to feel them scratch faintly at your pale skin through the strained cloth, smooth but for the jagged edge of one thumbnail (you catch him chewing at it, sometimes, when you’re watching a scary movie or in the middle of a particularly intense session of one of his alien role-playing games; in fact it is quite possible that there's an entire, heavily guarded subtier of your mental sylladex devoted entirely to a carefully cultivated collection of images of Tavros’s lips wrapped around his own fingers ).

His long, _very_ clever fingers. Dastardly clever. Downright fiendish in their cunning. Debauched, rakish rouges of digits that must be made to speak for their crimes, namely their infuriating knack for drumming out the most insane of beats against your flesh until your whole body throbs needy and wanton with their tempo.

“Tavros—” you pant. He digs that finger in harder, and the world goes briefly white. “ _Shit_ , Tavros. Show my prostate a little sympathy, I’m being fucking gored, here.”

This close, nuzzled together, you can’t actually _see_ him blush, but you can feel it, a sudden, coppery heat rising up in his cheeks. When he speaks his lips shape the words against your neck, warm and breathy, the soft drag of his mouth as it shapes each syllable making you quiver and clench as white, jangling heat races up and down your spine.

“Not yet, you aren’t,” Tavros whispers, thumb pressing into the taut fabric just above your entrance.

And with that hushed promise banging loud and electric inside your skull, he slips the jagged edge of his thumbnail beneath the exposed stitch and, with the deftest flick of his wrist—

 _Pop._

—slices clean through it.

==>

You keep your cool for the first stitch.

 _Pop._

And the second.

 _Pop._

But things get complicated around stitch number three.

 _Pop._

Because you’ve done the math—

 _Pop._

—counted the seconds between each stitch—

 _Pop._

—and come to the conclusion that Tavros needs to _hurry the fuck up and fuck you already_ —

 _Pop._

—instead of wasting his time going all slow motion Alexander the Great on the Gordian Knot at your groin.

 _Pop._

“You realize this completely voids the return policy on this get-up.”

“Oh that’s—“ _Pop._ “—a real pity.”

By now you’re grinding down shamelessly against the heated brush of his knuckles, legs spread as wide as you can manage in an attempt to expedite the process.

 _Pop._

“You could—ah!—save us some grief and a very embarrassing request for Kanaya’s assistance in Bobbin Threading 101 by just—hnk!” Tavros has climbed high enough on his summit of Mt. Striderbulge that his hand is ghosting against your still silk-clad balls. “Ripping them off me like a normal person.”

You should have kept your damn mouth shut. Tavros pauses, nail hooked around the last stitch preventing your gonads from knowing the sweet, sweet taste of the cool bedroom air, and cocks his head, gaze flicking up to your sweating, straining pokerface, down to your far more expressive erection, and back again.

He licks his lips.

“I’m thinking that , no, I won’t do that because. .. I like seeing you in them and—”

He unhooks his nail from the last, traitorous stitch and shifts his whole hand northward to palm you heavily through the silk.

“I think you like them, too.”

You whine wordlessly, fingers curling tight around his horns in a desperate attempt at retaliation. “You’re an evil motherfucker, you know that, right? A right proper villain.”

“The rightest,” Tavros beams, giving you an affectionate sort of squeeze before letting go entirely. You want to protest but Tavros is fumbling with his belt now ( _finally finally finally_ ) and who are you to trip up this otherwise step in the right direction?

Tavros is much quicker with the buttons of his fly than he was with the stitches of your pants, but the noise he makes as his bulge is freed—a heady, breathless gasp of pained relief as the damp black fabric parts to let it slip the rest of the way out from its slitted sheath, swelling to its full length—sooths most of your indignation.

That doesn’t mean you can’t still bite him on the cheekbone out of spite.

There’s always this moment whenever Tavros shimmies out of his pants where he pauses, fingers curled in the fabric bunched around his hips. It’s deceptively brief, like the red-white twinkling of a star in the sky, so fleeting and delicate and lost in the glittering spectacle of other stars it’s easy to forget that, millions of light years away and eons in the past, the slow circling of two giant suns in a binary star system are the source of the phenomenon. His fingers linger at the edge of some invisible line, the ridges of his calloused hands catching there as if at the edge of a sea-swept cliff, and he grins, wide, unselfconscious, and so delighted by this new discovery that you want to seize him by his big, stupid ears and kiss him until, by sheer force of pressed skin alone, you can wash away some of the memory of the deadened land that used to lay beyond the reach of his hands’ exploring.

Even now, years later, the game keeps finding new and increasingly unexpected ways to stretch its claws into your new universe and rake them ruthlessly down the blackboard of your lives, but this, this turned out okay.

Neither of you have ever had much interest in putting in the grinding necessary to level up your patience echeladder, so it suits you just fine when Tavros halts the pants-removal process somewhere around mid-thigh, just low enough for him to slip one hand between his parted legs and rub teasingly along the entrance of his nook. He’s absolutely dripping, wetness smeared faintly bronze along the inside of his gray thighs.

Maybe he’ll reconsider and let you top from the bottom.

“Again,” you groan, very un-cool but who really gives a flying flip, at this point. “We’re doing this bullfight boudoir burlesque _again_ —“

“ _Yes_ ,” Tavros purrs, drawing out the word until it takes on a rasping, alien edge. The tip of his bulge twists itself into the creased folds of cloth at the top of your hip as he ruts slowly along your own straining length. Against your leg you can feel the muscles of his forearm flex as he works an unknown number of fingers into himself.

“—except _I’m_ going to win, and then I’m going to eat you out until your jaw goes numb in sympathy for all the praises I’m humming to your genitals and all you can do is mewl and choke around the consonants of my name like you’re a linguistic xenoanthropologist with a fetish for glottal stops.”

Tavros helpfully provides all accompanied with a preview of just what, exactly, that might sound like.

“Like that. Just…” You comb your fingers through his hair in encouragement, one hand slipping down to pet along his face and cup at the edge of his jaw. You can feel his pulse racing against your fingers. “And I’m going to hide all sorts of microphones and shit all around the apartment to capture that moment in all its rumbling, panting acoustic glory so I can work it in as the baseline for my next single and Tavros, Tavros—”

His fingers are brushing against the bared pucker of your ass, now, warm and slick with his own lubrication, thick enough thanks to generations of evolutionary adaptation to blunt the sharp edges of even fully-grown claws.

You keep talking even as he works one finger, then another past that ring of muscle (my, Grandma, what big hands you have). Your voice is like your armor, and you’re afraid of all the soft things that would be uncovered if it were to be stripped away.

“We’re going to ride that syncopated symphony of sex and syntax so far past platinum they’re going to have to invent a new element to slather across the record. Fuck. _Fuck_. One more. I can take it. I… Kanye West is going to spend the rest of his career gate-crashing awards shows preaching the gospel of our sick scores. All music thereafter will be vanity, only vanity. No beat will surpass us. We’ll—”

“Dave.” You’re empty, empty, empty, and suddenly too aware of the trembling of your limbs, the stifling heat of your costume. Tavros pulls back—you scramble after him desperately, clutching at the sweat-damp front of his shirt—but it’s just to line himself up. “You ready?”

You nod. Vigorously.

The stretch is sweet at first, then briefly painful, but you’re an old pro at this, the oldest of pros. You relax, letting go of your tensions one by one until your mind and body are buzzing only with the thick, heavy weight of your matesprit.

(Tavros always has had a way of filling up all your empty corners.)

He settles into a rhythm that’s a little rougher than usual, his bulge curling to drag heavily as he pulls out, twisting around to push deeper as he drives in again. The pace set earlier in the lancing third of your foreplay. It’s all fine by you. So very, very fine. You push into his tempo with what leverage you can muster, the body-warm silk of the matador costume making it feel like you’re sliding around in your own skin.

You’re still being teased by what remains of the seam at your crotch, the abused line of stitches rubbing tantalizingly up and back again along your tightly drawn balls and the base of your cock. It’s almost—but not quite—enough.

You reach down, intending to free your aching cock from the iron maiden of your pants, but Tavros again catches your wrist with his free hand. You huff, arcing off the bed in displeasure, but he isn’t halting your hand’s progress, merely guiding it. You’re touching yourself—marveling slightly at how hard and hot and _other_ your cock feels under your palm and twitching fingers, pink-clad toes curling at the drag of red silk damp with pre-cum and sweat up and down your length—but it’s Tavros dictating the speed of your motions, his large fingers wrapping over yours to adjust the strength of your grip, thumb drifting upward occasionally to rub at the wet spot blooming at the tip.

Your aching body thrums with the beats of your sweet mix and the feeling of Tavros’s bulge pressing dragging _curling_ in time with the heavily layered strings and electronic bass. Tavros is over you and in you and _around_ you, everywhere, guiding your every moment just as he has since his first headlong charge. You need him so goddamn much, and he’s there, right there, touch arcing through you like white-hot electricity, and your inner monolog could probably use another bullfighting themed analogy at this point but fuck if you can string the braincells together for anything clever when you’re being g— _gored_ , yes, that’ll do, you’ve used it once before already BUT NOW YOU REALLY FUCKING MEAN IT—fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , Tavros…

You don’t last long. But then again, you were sort of doomed from the start.

==>

Tavros stays with you, milking you through the last dregs of your orgasm. You rock in time with his rhythm until the swell and curve of his bulge inside you becomes too much and you push him reluctantly away, out of breath and hypersensitive.

Tavros pulls out, shifts to grope for something down at floor level, and thank inappropriately anthropomorphic Mr. Bucket you keep a pail stashed here down near the end of the bed because you’re not too keen on letting Mr. Nitram venture far afield of your well-fucked reach.

Your legs feel like water but there’s enough strength left in them yet to hold the bucket steady, the cool, familiar press of the metal against your thighs soothing even through a layer of fabric. Tavros hovers above you, working himself with one hand while the other roams across your chest, palm tracing the golden swirls there, fingering the tassels with a reverence bordering on religious. He licks at his fangs, cheeks flushed bronze (darkest where you bit him), ribs heaving with deep, snorting breaths.

“C’mon, toro.” You slap lazily at his flank, drawl thick with endorphins. “My big bull stud, c’ _mon_.”

The hand on your chest spasms, there’s a rip as something tears somewhere near your right shoulder, and, with a toss of his head and a groan like he’s been pierced somewhere vital by many multi-colored spears, Tavros comes.

You’re so focused on keeping the bucket upright between your straining thighs as the last of Tavros’s genetic material drains out of him that soft touch to the inside of your clamped knees comes as a surprise. With a gentle tug at the handle Tavros eases the bucket out your quivering grasp and settles it on the floor so it won’t tip over. Or so you suppose, based on the sum total of your prior bucket-filling experiences (of which there are more than a few). You’re a little too busy getting reacquainted with the insides of your eyelids to witness the act personally.

You wake up to Tavros’s blunted claws peeling you out of your stockings and ruined leggings in the more traditional fashion, a cool, damp cloth trailing along in the wake of his touch, cleaning you up. It feels like peeling off the layers of a sunburn, a little gross but amazingly cathartic, and when he sits you up to worm your arms out of your (slightly shredded) jacket you hum approvingly into his ear.

Good bull, best page.

You must have mumbled some of that out loud, because Tavros straightens your shades, presses a chaste kiss to your temple, and rumbles back something so embarrassingly flushed it’s bordering on pale. It’s quiet in the apartment—Tavros must have turned off your playlist while he was fetching the washrag—but for the soft shush of silk over skin as your matesprit unknots your tie and slips it from your throat.

“Gracias, toreador.” Another kiss, slightly less chaste, its virtue threatened by the mischievous curve of Tavros’s lips and the warm hand slipping up underneath your vest.

“Eh.” You wave sex-numb fingers dismissively. “De nada.”

He’s so careful with the buttons of your shirt it’s hard to reconcile him with the troll-in-the-proverbial-chinashop that tore through your apartment not half an hour earlier. “You said that this was, John’s idea?”

“Vantas was in on it, too. Probably to blame for the really kinky bits.” Tavros tugs at your undershirt, and you lift your arms obediently so he can slip it off. “Are we going to spoon? Because someone’s a little overdressed for the occasion.”

“Hold your hoofbeasts.” There’s no reason for you to sit up anymore, so you flop back and watch with hooded eyes as Tavros strips efficiently out of the rest of his clothes. You try to slither, snake-like, up the tangled landscape of sheets, still a little too weak-kneed and jittery to make a coordinated go of it. Halfway there Tavros catches you up in his arms and pulls you both sideways until he can lie on his side with his horns hooked over the edge of the bed.

“Should we thank them, you think?” His breath tickles where he’s nuzzling the top of your head. Big doofus always gets extra silly and cuddly after a good fuck. “Send them a card?”

“That would be—” You yawn. “ _Amazingly_ inappropriate. Let’s do it.”

“Mm. One of the ones left over from Christmas?”

“With the glitter penguins on them, yes.”

“’Dear John…’”

“’And Fuckscreech.’”

“Ha! ‘Thank you for the present.’”

“’Your input into our sex life, while unprompted and objectively creepy, is appreciated.’”

“’We both, uh, really, _really_ enjoyed it.’”

“And nobody,’” you mumble, “’ended up locked out on the roof naked.”

You can sense Tavros’s wordless puzzlement, a warm buzz of confusion at the edge of your awareness, but you’re too zonked to elaborate further.

Later Tavros will sit up with a start, swearing colorfully and scrambling for the long-forgotten groceries, too little, too late for the leaking pints of frozen creamed dairy with golden swirls and chocolate-coated grubs (Her Caramel Condesce, his favorite of Ben and Jerry’s post-warp flavors). Later than that you’ll crunch down on a Superman vitamin only to find that they taste like chalk and fruit-flavored shit. But that’s little stuff, nothing to make a scene about, and you’ll crunch valiantly on, thankful that neither of you is the kind of guy to fuck up something important like proper cereal box placement.

Your name is Dave Strider, PART-TIME MATADOR, FULL-TIME COMPLETE AND SHAMELESSLY PITY-STRUCK DORK FOR ONE TAVROS NITRAM, and it has been a long, strange, and very sexy (if occasionally confusing and rather alarming) day.

You have more than earned your post-coital naked cuddle power nap.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes in case the YouTube Links ever go bonk:  
> 1\. David Holloway as Escamillo in the 1985 Glyndebourne Festival Opera production of Bizet's _Carmen_ , “Toreador Song”  
> 2\. Apocalyptica, “Toreador”  
> 3\. Apocalyptica, “Toreador II (Live at Rock im Park 2003)”  
> 4\. Lex De Core, “Toreador (Electro Edit)”  
> 5\. Antonia Banderas ,“Bella Maria de mi Alma”


End file.
